TOR vs. Pre-CU and NGE for Galaxies. Should they just have re-made Galaxies with...

TOR's graphical polish? I know it doesn't seem fair to compare these two games since the focus of each game was different. But as you've no doubt seen, plenty of people are not satisfied with TOR and don't(or didn't) feel the subscription required to play it(as of now) is worth sticking around for.

I played a bit of SWG before Sony messed with the system and caused so many people to leave, but it felt so much better than TOR to me. I know TOR focuses on your class story and the lore and whatnot, but it fails in terms of having a lasting feeling. SWG was built as a sandbox type game where you could do whatever you wanted. Want to build a house and furnish it? Go for it. Wanna go a step further and build a player-made city with lots of people? Great! Wanna get a space ship and furnish that too? Sure. Wanna send it out in space and do full control space combat? Nothing's stopping you. Wanna group up and kill bosses and other hard to kill enemies? Sure, no problem. Wanna wage war on a planet controlled by the opposite faction and take over it? The...well there wasn't really a limit. Wanna be a Jedi and be stupidly awesome/tough? Gotta work for it since it was rare to see one.

Just...so much stuff, so much lasting effects of SWG...was great. Why did TOR have to follow the WoW approach? Don't get me wrong. I love TOR's story elements, the combat's pretty engaging and the fully voiced over questing system was great. But the lack of the amount of customization available just...felt off, for me at least.

What do you think?

Originally Posted by Sakpoth

I find it unreasonable to ask for other than obvious reasons, when the reason obviously is the obvious reason.

I think I wouldn't have liked SWTOR nearly as much if it was an aimless sandbox. SWG just let you run loose, and you know what? They were basically following EverQuest's approach of "run around and kill shit til you level/skill up". When I played SWG, there seemed no real purpose other than that (since I'm not into moisture farming and cantina dancing). After years of EQ, I wanted something different. WoW, when it was released, didn't have that aimless feel. I guess that makes me a theme park fan.

I do see the appeal. In the future, I would like to see more sandbox-type features for people to be able to do more stuff, but I want my quests. I want my storyline. I want end-game raids. I want SWTOR's main focus to be the game I bought. If they add expansive space and moisture farming and shit? Awesome, as long as they keep what they have now, in addition to all that.

Formerly known here as Nakaya_Kilrogg.
I don't play Nak anymore, I'm not on Kilrogg, and
I haven't played WoW seriously since the end of LK.

I do agree with Nakaya.... if they would add "sandbox elements" like housing (furniture your spaceship), swoop races etc. it would add a lot to swtor. Another element would be pvp object in which aspect SWG was offering more than what TOR does at the moment.

SWG had several big letdowns.... starting with the introduction of the Jedi Class (was supposed to be limited to 5 per faction per server!) and "grind" element to achieve the ok to create a Jedi (if they would have introduced a very very long questchain we would have had less Jedi roaming the server than what we had before NGE), followed up by the no-decay.. which was supposed to be temporarily, followed by the class per class fixes which made one class op for 2-3 months followed by another class being op and so on up until introducing quest items which were better than what could be crafted (on a common level) and last but not least... NGE itself, followed by a 1 year period to "fix" all the classes step by step which would take away any freedom and classes you had before without giving you "objectives" only to backpaddle years later to give you all the freedom back including objectives.... .

When I think about SWG it's mostly nostalgic feelings. As written above... EA/ Bioware should add more social targets/ timesinks, create events and stuff to keep people interested apart of raids/ pvp. You should log into the game and think.. well what stuff I would like to do more than others and not.. what kind of stuff I have to do today not (dailys).

Star Wars has a huge potential and I hope we will see some of it in the future.

Just...so much stuff, so much lasting effects of SWG...was great. Why did TOR have to follow the WoW approach? Don't get me wrong. I love TOR's story elements, the combat's pretty engaging and the fully voiced over questing system was great. But the lack of the amount of customization available just...felt off, for me at least.

What do you think?

I won't get into the whole "TOR should be/should have been SWG V2" discussion, but answer these two and you know why they "had to" follow WoW.

How many subscribers did SWG have these past few years ? (Before the shut down)
How many subscribers does WoW have ?

It's an unfortunate truth that companies hate to take risks. So copying the successful mold of WoW seems like a sure bet to them. Nevermind that it didn't work out quite so well for the last x MMOs that tried ....

I agree, I'd be a happy subscriber if it was a sandbox with refined PvP elements, no question about it. Linear theme park MMO's are so limited and require an immense amount of content updates for no particular reason besides the concept of actually being a linear theme park MMO.

The closest analogy I can come up with would be designing a car that uses more gas for no reason other than for using more gas and then you have to fill up more often, I guess that's a good business plan if you also own the oil fields, too bad the customers will eventually realize your cars are shit and go elsewhere with their business.

I agree with that SWTOR should have been less of WoW, but not sure if all the sandboxy things in SWG would fit/work in SWTOR (seeing as it's story centered).

To declare that a personal, inner experience gives certainty about the workings of the universe is to assign far too much value to one’s subjective sense of conviction.
I’m not that arrogant.
The brain, marvelous instrument though it is, isn’t infallible. It can misfire, seize or hallucinate, and it can do so in a way that’s utterly indistinguishable from reality to the person experiencing it.

I think people keep looking at SWG with rose colored glasses far too often. Everyone keeps asking for it back, but if they were so happy to play it to begin with, SoE would have felt more comfortable with and not needing to do something like NGE, and they would have felt more comfortable with it competing with SWTOR.

Sandbox games just don't sell well in the current market. Outside of EVE, the remaining sandbox games are very niche (Fallen Earth, Ryzom (spelling?), Perpetuum, Darkfall ect.), and there's not a big demand for them right now. Theme park games are much much more popular, as evidenced by WoW's continuing drift towards more theme park elements and the multitude of reasonably successful theme park games elsewhere.

As for why SWTOR followed the WoW approach, it's safe. EA wanted to be a direct competitor to WoW and they didn't want to take many risks with the game. They invested hundreds of millions into development and thought they could take a big chunk of the WoW market given that they have the BioWare and Star Wars names behind it. That wasn't the case unfortunately.

What TOR really needs is some sandbox features such as open world space exploration/PvP/PvE and mini-games such as Pazaak and Swoop Racing. These kinds of things will give players things to do with a high replayability factor keeping players subscribing/paying weekly passes.
Good balance of Theme Park and some sandbox features should make for a successful MMO.

If a sandbox game ever gets both pvp system and anti-botting measures right, I'll play it in a heartbeat.

That said, the market is currently dominated by a themepark game so the lemmings will follow.

Lemmings? Way to insult people for the type of game they prefer. If SWG was the answer, it'd still be around.

I think Skyrim really hit it. In Skyrim, you had a central storyline, as the Dovahkiin, but there were also tons of quests and housing and sandbox elements you could get into when you didn't feel like following the main story for awhile. The story was always there for you to go back to. The problem is applying this to an MMO. Once they figure it out, I think they'll start making some really amazing changes.

Formerly known here as Nakaya_Kilrogg.
I don't play Nak anymore, I'm not on Kilrogg, and
I haven't played WoW seriously since the end of LK.

That was one thing I was confused about with TOR. If I'm not mistaken, *A LOT* of people asked for side stuff like Pazaak, Swoop Racing, etc. Why did BioWare not deliver on that? If that was the case then maybe casinos would actually have people in them instead of most people sitting on the fleet and on the high level planets for dailies and whatnot.

Originally Posted by Sakpoth

I find it unreasonable to ask for other than obvious reasons, when the reason obviously is the obvious reason.

That was one thing I was confused about with TOR. If I'm not mistaken, *A LOT* of people asked for side stuff like Pazaak, Swoop Racing, etc. Why did BioWare not deliver on that? If that was the case then maybe casinos would actually have people in them instead of most people sitting on the fleet and on the high level planets for dailies and whatnot.

There's a massive laundry-list of things they want/wanted to get in the game, and it's lower on the priorities.

Formerly known here as Nakaya_Kilrogg.
I don't play Nak anymore, I'm not on Kilrogg, and
I haven't played WoW seriously since the end of LK.

TOR went WoW instead of SWG because as far as population goes Themepark>Sandbox. Its just a bigger market with a bigger chance of success. That's not to say that they shouldn't have done more sandbox and done more to set themselves apart from WoW.

Production on TOR began in 2005, and it shows, it is really an inferior WoW clone in many ways. I really like a lot about TOR, but they really dropped the ball on things they could of done to differentiate themselves in the market. What makes it worse for me is that they have like hints of features, but they aren't there, like ships easily could have been basic player housing, in many ways it is, but you can't customize anything about it. Outfit customization could have been the same, but not all item are moddable, and cost to move mods is crazy despite two nerfs to it. Codex could have been a kind of achievement system, but its so buggy you can't even tell what entries are real or not. Space combat is another place they should have went all out. The mini-game is OK, but there isn't enough to it, and its really grinding to get the rewards.

I think TOR could have been a lot better with more sandbox, but I think it would have suffered just as much if it was too much like SWG.

Lemmings? Way to insult people for the type of game they prefer. If SWG was the answer, it'd still be around.

I meant deciders at EA, not consumers. But as edgecrusherO0 pointed out, there - obviously - is an explanation for the business decisions we've seen over the last few years.

Still, while we're at it, looking at DRM, DLCs and price gouging I feel consumers tolerated way too much garbage in this industry over the last few years. I hope the trend towards crowd funding will offer a viable alternative to a market cornered by basically two big names.

Some SWG features would be welcome in TOR imo. I wouldn't copy everything though. Themeparks are for a wider audience. They tend to require less mental energy and perfectly fit the casual approach. Sandboxes tend to require more thought, more patience and more time invested. A Themepark by definition caters to all types of players. It can have some limited sandbox features and still have a very low threshold to enter. If TOR were to have some SWG features included it couldn't hurt but I doubt it would make TOR explode sub-wise either. It would make me happier but not sure on the business advantage.

I'm a huge SWG fan but SWG 2.0 will never happen (alas) so the best I can hope for is that some features make it over to TOR one day. TOR, today, is a very shallow experience that could be improved with a few meaty sandbox 'fixes'. Luckily MMO's evolve over time and I have enough patience to see what happens in 2013/2014.

SWG - Jamus Divinus - Bria 2005-2011

Originally Posted by edgecrusher

There is plenty to criticize with the game and BioWares handling of it without resorting to exaggeration, so let's not do it : /

I meant deciders at EA, not consumers. But as edgecrusherO0 pointed out, there - obviously - is an explanation for the business decisions we've seen over the last few years.

Still, while we're at it, looking at DRM, DLCs and price gouging I feel consumers tolerated way too much garbage in this industry over the last few years. I hope the trend towards crowd funding will offer a viable alternative to a market cornered by basically two big names.

The rise of crowd-funded games, in my opinion, show just how much we the consumer aren't happy. So far, it's been "tolerated" because there haven't been good, viable alternatives.

Take a game like The Secret World, with a really good storyline, some cool mechanics, and a few innovative features to it. Yet, because of the shitty production value (compared to a game like WoW or SWTOR), it's not getting a lot of play. When a game that could be really good comes out, it's so "indie" and under-funded, that it doesn't have the smoothness, graphics, and features like your AAA titles. A lot of games go the "it's a good idea, but.." route. They don't have the money and the development time to be able to compete.

We have to accept it because it's the best available.

Formerly known here as Nakaya_Kilrogg.
I don't play Nak anymore, I'm not on Kilrogg, and
I haven't played WoW seriously since the end of LK.

If they could have found the perfect balance between sandbox and theme-park, Bioware would have had an absolute gem on their hands.

The way I see it, is that you can't have a Star Wars game and not have some sandbox in it. The Star Wars universe is all about exploration and discovery, but to be quite honest, SWTOR had none of that for me.

Outside of the fully-voiced cutscenes, the game plays extremely tight and limiting on where you can go and what you can do. Every single element of the game is designed to make your first play-through enjoyable. After that, apart from making a new class, there is nothing that adds longevity to the game or a reason to go back to an earlier point. From lvl 50 onwards, the Fleet becomes your permanent destination.

Going the SWG route may have been a bit extreme by today's standards, because you run the risk of having your population spread too thin. But they could have definitely taken much from the game and incorporated it into their own.

Galaxies was nearly 10 years ago now, and to see Bioware take such a giant step backwards with the direction they took SWTOR was heartbreaking. If I were to describe the game to anyone who hasn't played it yet, I would tell them that it is Knights of the Old Republic 3 with multiplayer elements. At that point, why bother even making an MMO?

When I think about the possibilities this game could have had with the budget they spent to make it, I am baffled at how badly they missed the mark.